


Angel

by xamuletx



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Sort of? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:47:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24340813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xamuletx/pseuds/xamuletx
Summary: She can never remember her name. Whatever it was before but she does remember a young man with raven black hair and a small smile and a costume of bright red who had talked to her like she was his best friend.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Original Character(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	Angel

**Author's Note:**

> I found this story in my drafts today and though I remember it being inspired by a super angsty fic I read here years ago, I can't for the life of my find it again.

She can never remember her name. Whatever it was  _ before _ but she does remember a young man with raven black hair and small smile and a costume of bright red who had talked to her like she was his best friend.

He had called her Angel. Had said it was only logical what with her dazzling gold hair, white wings and incorporeal form. 

They first met when he'd fallen from a rooftop and she'd helped him get back up. The look on his face and his shortness of breath told her that he hadn't expected her aid. She thought he might've thanked her but she dissipated as the shadow of the Bat descended over them.

The second time they met was less perilous than the first. She had been sat on one of the countless air conducts that made up the rooftops of Gotham, idly wondering as to why she was there when he found her in a splash a red against the smog. He introduced himself as Robin,  _ Timothy Jackson Drake  _ a deep voice said within her, and they talked about everything and nothing. It shocked him at first, how easily he opened up the girl with no form so he hid. For weeks after, he avoided her or perhaps she could just never find him.

But then, all of a sudden, he was next to her again and they were talking like the past month had never happened.

The third time, she saved him again. He'd been injured badly and as she cried over his unconscious body she vowed that she'd protect this young hero. Angel placed a hand over his heart and willed for the body to strengthen again. So that his eyes may look at her like she was a real person again.

Over the next couple of years, she remained by his side, unseen but a guardian of his life all the same. She followed him as he took on bigger and badder enemies, as he provoked assassins and meddled with murderers. She almost lost him when he was attacked in the desert and again when he was defenestrated. But each time, her intangible form would surround him, her shrouded wings would surround them both and he would breathe again.

It is no different this time, though he is not in his usual uniform. He wears a suit though now it is stained red from the sniper bullet. His family surround him on the grass. His father pleads for the young man to stay awake, the older brother sobs and the youngest is shocked still, staring uncomprehendingly at the body. 

Tim is fatally injured. The bullet was probably intended for a kevlar-enhanced suit of armour, not a flimsy shirt and blazer. An ambulance might be close but Tim will die long before he reaches a hospital. 

His father keeps talking to him, hand cupped to his cheek to rub tears away with his thumb. He says something and Tim looks like he fills with a renewed sense of belonging, he smiles but then his eyes go glassy, the last of his consciousness slipping away. 

Angel hopes she is not too late as she manifests by his side. She's not even noticed until she tries to pull the older man's hand away from the wound on Timothy’s side. He recoils, angry and frustrated and helpless but somehow he is soothed by just the look of her. The two brothers stare at her, tears streaking their faces as she lifts her hands to the hole in her precious treasure's side and lets the power of her ethereal divinity pour into his body. 

Her marvellous wings shelter them from the cruel world beyond as Timothy's life hangs in the balance. She knows she's using too much of her power at once, knows that she probably won't survive this but Tim will, and that's all that matters.

For a few seconds nothing seems to happen and the family around her tense in their grief but then suddenly there is a gasp from beneath her hands and Tim’s eyes fly wide open as he struggles for breath. She can't pull away now though so she keeps the power running between her and Tim until the wound stitches itself closed, until the frothy red recedes from his mouth and leaves his throat clear.

She makes eye contact with him, her smile happy but broken as her form flickers between this plane of existence and the next.

“Angel?” Timothy rasps.

She raises a hand to cup his cheek, the burning of tears in her eyes as she looks into his exhausted ones. “You can rest now, Tim.”

At those words, the tension leaves his body as her power coaxes him into a deep sleep and with a jolt, her surroundings come back to her. The whine of the ambulance siren is so much louder now. Before she dissipates, she takes a moment to hold his limp hand before carefully resting it upon his chest which rises and falls peacefully.

She turns to his father who looks at her in wonder and awe and fear. His hands are bloody but she can’t do much about that. Instead, she gathers them up and wills a small seed into his palm, curling his fingers tight around it.

“Don’t go back on your promise. It will break him.” She whispers with the last of her strength. 

A powerful voice resonates deep within her, calling her home. She lets herself bask in the friendship she shared with Timothy one last time. Closing her eyes, the wind carries away the last vestiges of her presence.


End file.
